“World’s Oldest Erotica” Found by Archaeologists

by Jeff Schult

Even if it doesn't turn you on, is it a turn-on knowing they were turned on?

So we all know porn has been around a really long time. We suspect it may be as old as art. It may be even as old as sex itself. Who is to say what erotic movies might have been playing in the heads of the earliest self-aware versions of ourselves?

Scientists, of course, get closer to answering ultimate questions like this all the time. And in Turkey, recently, archaeologists digging up the world’s oldest known temple ran across what is being called the world’s oldest erotic picture.

According to the Croatian Times, “The image was found carved on a stone at the Gobekli Tepe temple in Turkey that predates Stonehenge by 7,000 years—and shows a headless man with an erect penis romping with mythical creatures.”

Now we have to tell you—we looked, and we cannot say we’re exactly turned on by this so-called erotic image. In fact (photo below) we’re embarrassed to say we had to stare awhile before we identified the headless man with the erect penis. (Looks to be to the lower right though?) It’s sort of a “Where’s Waldo” kind of sexual image.

But this is now and that was then. And “romping with mythical creatures” sounds like … well, even if the art doesn’t turn you on, the fantasies were clearly working pretty well, back in the day.